Large institutions must analyze, categorize, and store enormous amounts of information that pass through their data centers daily. Recording mediums (hereinafter “media tapes”) for storing the information may be held off-site at a depot managed by a third-party, a so-called outside service provider (OSP), just one example being Iron Mountain™. Once stored, the media tapes remain at the OSP until user at the institution requests them.
It is vitally important that when user at an institution requests a media tape, the media tape is actually located at the OSP. For example, large institutions use OSPs to store data from one of many data centers, and if a media tape is not located at the OSP then millions of dollars of potential earnings may be lost or paid out because of law suits. Further, physically locating the missing media tape may be an arduous task, especially if the media tape has been missing for a long time. In the past, companies have sent personnel to literally dig through landfills to find a lost media tape.
The same institution of the example above may use a transportation record storage provider (TRSP) as a centralized repository of records related to the transportation of media to assist with tracking. The TRSP stores logs/journals of requests by personnel at a data center to distribute or receive media tapes. The data center provides the distribution requests (requests to send media tapes to the OSP), and pick requests (requests to receive media tapes from the OSP) to the TRSP. The TRSP, therefore, is a centralized repository of logs/journals of the various requests. These logs/journals represent the “logical” movement of the media tapes, or in other words, the intended movement of the media tapes. Personnel may refer to the distribution lists and pick lists stored at the TRSP to learn where a media tape “should” reside.
Merely using a TRSP is not ideal because a logical movement of a media tape may not correspond to an actual, physical, movement of the media tape. The system may be improved by scanning the inbound and outbound movements of the media tapes at the data center, and storing records of the scans at the TRSP. The logical movements of the media tapes can be compared to the TRSP's records.
The improvement described above still is not fool-proof because the scan files and the TRSP's records do not disclose whether the media tapes were actually received and stored at the OSP or not. The system can be further improved by sending the journal/logs to the OSP for comparison. This solution is still not ideal because the responsibility for comparing records is with the OSP, responses to queries may not be timely, and the OSP can only compare its inventory to the journals/logs, which does not give a complete picture of when and where a mistake occurred.
In addition to problems of gathering and reconciling the logical and physical movements of media tapes, other errors may be introduced by the collection of information.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,069,278 (“System for archive integrity management and related methods”) provides for one or more integrity manager applications, each of which monitors the integrity of an aspect of a data archive. Some integrity manager applications monitor the integrity of processes executed by the archive system, and other integrity manager applications monitor the integrity of communication paths in the archive system. However, U.S. Pat. No. 7,069,278 does not address reconciliation of transaction records, especially when the logical movements of media tapes do not correspond to the physical movement of the media tapes.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,886,047 and 6,557,039 (“System and Method for Managing Information Retrievals for Integrated Digital and Analog archives on a global Basis” and “System and Method for Managing Information Retrievals from Distributed Archives”), provide for a system and method for managing information retrievals from all enterprises' archives across different operating locations. A single “virtual archive” is provided which links all of the archives of the enterprise, regardless of the location or configuration of the archive. The virtual archive allows for data aggregation (regardless of location) so the a user can have data from multiple physical locations on a single screen in a single view. However, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,886,047 and 6,557,039 do not address reconciliation of transaction records.
In addition to the deficiencies in the prior art noted above, none of the above mentioned systems is capable of analyzing data gathered during reconciliation to determine the root cause of misplaced data.
Other problems and drawbacks also exist.
Accordingly, a system is needed that can reconcile inbound and outbound records, correct for errors, and identify root causes, all within a time frame that allows for misplaced media tapes to be located before profits are lost or other expenses incurred.